How well do you know your spine and what it needs?
Does your physician? Does your insurer (ie,
Medicare)? Chiropractic Care prides itself on knowing the
spine of each of our West Palm Beach chiropractic patients. Your West Palm Beach
chiropractor assesses your low back when there’s
low back pain, your neck when there’s neck pain, your neck when you have arm pain, your low back when you have
leg pain, your thoracic spine when there is thoracic
(and even neck and low back) pain. Your chiropractor ”gets” your
spine. Sadly, sometimes your insurer doesn’t.
The chiropractic profession strives to provide
the research to the insurers to cover essential treatment for
your spine while your West Palm Beach chiropractor strives
to communicate clearly with your insurer for your optimal
care and with you for your best clinical outcome: back pain relief, neck pain relief, arm pain relief, leg pain relief,
etc.
YOUR INSURER
Administrators’ data does not tell the whole
story about back pain. In a study comparing
self-reported low back pain to data assembled by
health groups that track low back pain via billing codes
and the like found that these two groups
do not agree. Self-reported data about low back
pain (21.2%) was greater than administration’s data (10.2%).
Characteristics of low back pain patients based on data varied
in several areas – sex, health/behavior traits, and health care use
– leading to an undervalued prevalence of low back pain. (1)
Chiropractic Care knows how prevalent back pain is and how it affects our back
pain patients like you.
YOUR BACK PAIN
In a study that expressly examined one influence on back pain - spinal stiffness - from the subjective
patient point of view and the objective testing angle revealed
that these two measures don’t correlate well either. At least in
this comparison, actual input was from people: patients filling out questionnaires and doctors who filled out
objective tests. These findings led the researchers to observe
that while these two sources do not correlate well, each is
important in the overall picture of the
patient’s condition and care. (2) Your West Palm Beach chiropractor factors
in this evidence to care for your spine.
YOUR CHIROPRACTOR
Your West Palm Beach chiropractor is an evidence-based
chiropractor. Evidence guides the spine relief treatment plan at
Chiropractic Care. An interesting study of chiropractic
students found that as each year of school passed the students became
less vitalistic and more evidence-based. (3) After 7 or so years in school,
your chiropractor is prepared to take care of West Palm Beach
back pain and neck pain patients. The evidence of useful chiropractic
spine care keeps growing! Researchers write today of
how the use of non-pharmacological pain management may inhibit
unnecessary use of opioids. Chiropractic is one type of non-drug
pain management offering. In a study of 101,221 spine pain patients, 1.55 to 2.03 times more non-chiropractic
patients filled an opioid prescription than chiropractic patients. (4)
Further, Medicare beneficiary patients who use chiropractic are found
to have higher clinical outcomes (faster recovery, fewer back
surgeries 12 months later, less opioid-linked
disability, fewer traumatic falls and injuries, slower declines in activities
of daily living and disability over time) at less cost (fewer
medical doctors visits for low back pain, less opioid expense, less back-surgery
cost) with more satisfaction. (5) These are not
bad trade-offs for the Medicare cost system and for the Medicare patient.
CONTACT Chiropractic Care
Listen to this PODCAST
by Dr. Lee Hazen and Cheri Hazen RN on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr.
Michael Johnson describing how non-pharmacological alleviating
treatment of back pain using the Cox® Technic System of Spinal
Pain Management and other non-drug approaches help.
Schedule a non-surgical West Palm Beach
chiropractic care appointment with Chiropractic Care. Your West Palm Beach chiropractor knows
your spine well and how to relieve it of pain: neck pain, arm pain, low back
pain or leg pain.